Storm Puzzles!

Hello everyone!

There is a deck that I have been playing off and on in Legacy for a while although haven't written anything about for a long time - Storm. The deck has been top-tier for a very long time, and although it is not doing well right now, it's worst matchup - Miracles - is moving out of the metagame which may open up a window for Dark Ritual to crush hopes and dreams.

One thing that makes Storm such a consistently powerful deck is how it is a modular combo deck. What do I mean by modular? There's many lines of play that can make you win. Decks like Painted Stone aren't modular - they are linear. They have only 1 line to attack with, and if it is disrupted then they lose. Today I want to pull example games that I have played online where victory was achieved.... but in a non-intuitive manner. Here's the list I'm playing right now:

1x Chrome Mox
4x Lotus Petal
4x Lion's Eye Diamond

1x Ad Nauseum
4x Brainstorm
4x Cabal Ritual
4x Dark Ritual

3x Burning Wish
2x Cabal Therapy
4x Duress
3x Gitaxian Probe
4x Infernal Tutor
1x Past in Flames
4x Ponder
1x Tendrils of Agony

1x Badlands
1x Volcanic Island
2x Underground Sea
2x Island
2x Swamp
2x Bloodstained Mire
2x Scalding Tarn
4x Polluted Delta

Sideboard:
4x Dark Confidant
3x Dread of Night
1x Deathmark
1x Empty the Warrens
1x Grim Tutor
1x Il-Gotten Gains
1x Infest
1x Shattering Spree
1x Tendrils of Agony
1x Thoughtseize

These puzzles have all come from games of mine, because I could never write these on my own.

Puzzle 1

So let's start off with a fairly simple puzzle. We're against MUD game 2, so after a blind cabal therapy takes Chalice of the Void from his hand, he has just Metalworker, Staff of Domination, and lands. We have a window of opportunity here so we want to win quickly - if he draws a Trinisphere or a Chalice it's going to get hard! We have not played a land yet, and there are 5 cards in our graveyard. Opponent is at 20

Cards in hand:
Lion's Eye Diamond
Infernal Tutor
Dark Ritual
Duress
Bloodstained Mire
Cabal Ritual

In play:
2x Underground Sea (untapped)

What's the line of play to win?

.

..

...

....

.....

......

Answer:
This one is actually very straight forward. He has no interaction with us, and we have rituals, lands, and a tutor. This is the "normal" line of play:
Bloodstained Mire --> Badlands
1 - Dark Ritual
BBB
2 - Cabal Ritual (with Dark Ritual and Bloodstained now in the graveyard we have 7 cards for threshold)
BBBBBB
3 - Lion's Eye Diamond
4 - Infernal Tutor, retaining priority break LED for red, grab Past in Flames
BBBBRR
5 - Past in Flames
BB
6 - Dark Ritual
BBBB
7 - Cabal Ritual
BBBBBBB
8 - Infernal Tutor, grabbing Tendrils of Agony
BBBBB
9 - Duress
BBBB
10 - Tendrils of Agony with 9 copies

This one isn't too difficult.... I wanted to start with this though. Obviously learning how to goldfish is the first step to any combo deck. Now let's get weird!

Puzzle 2

This is game 2 verses Counter-Top Miracles. I sideboarded in 4 Dark Confidant and took out 1 Ad Nauseum, 1 Gitaxian Probe, 1 Cabal Therapy, and 1 Chrome Mox. I kept an opening hand that could win turn 1 despite not having any lands assuming he had no counterspells, but had a Gitaxian Probe to make sure. He was on the play and played Misty - go. I cast Gitaxian Probe and saw Counterbalance, Spell Snare, Flusterstorm, Surgical Extraction, and lands. Gitaxian Probe drew me into a Polluted Delta, so I fetched up an Underground Sea, cast ponder, and saw 2x Duress and an Infernal Tutor, so I kept it. Over the next couple turns I cast my Duresses taking his Spell Snare and Flusterstorm. He resolved a counterbalance, and my Brainstorm was caught by a revealed Spell Pierce, which he then (completely incorrectly) Surgical Extrationed. When it came back to my turn, here was the board:

In Play:
His side: Academy Ruins (no artifacts in yard), Karakas, Volcanic Island, 2x Tundra, Counterbalance all untapped
My side: Underground Sea

Because of how I tracked his hand over the course of the game, I know his hand is exactly Counterbalance + Spell Pierce

My Graveyard (5 cards): Polluted Delta, 2x Duress, Gitaxian Probe, Ponder
My Exile: 4x Brainstorm

My hand: Polluted Delta, 3x Infernal Tutor, 2x Dark Ritual, Lion's Eye Diamond, Lotus Petal

How do we win?

Hint to get started: I played Polluted Delta, then Lotus Petal. He revealed Force of Will for Counterbalance targeting the Petal.

I did not discard any cards when you activate Lion's Eye Diamond

.

..

...

....

.....

......

.......

........

.........

..........

Ok, here's the answer:

1 - Play Polluted Delta, cast Lotus Petal (he reveales FoW to Counterbalance)
2 - Tap Underground Sea to cast Dark Ritual
3 - He casts Spell Pierce in response. We tutor up a Badlands, and then pay the 2 mana
BBB
4 - Cast Infernal Tutor, reveal Dark Ritual from hand to get another
B
5 - Cast Dark Ritual
BBB
6 - Cast Infernal Tutor, reveal Dark Ritual from hand to get another
B
7/8 - Cast 2 Dark Rituals
BBBBB
9 - Cast Lion's Eye Diamond
10 - Cast Infernal Tutor, crack LED in response for red
BBBRRR
11 - Tendrils of Agony copied 10 additional times
BR

It doesn't actually matter what you crack LED for, but if you want to piss off your opponent, you could tutor up Past in Flames, then flashback 4 Dark Rituals before casting Infernal Tutor for Infernal Tutor into Burning Wish into Tendrils for 18 additional copies and 38 damage total.

Puzzle 3

It's game 1 vs an unknown opponent. We keep a hand of: island, 2x fetch lands, dark ritual, burning wish, ponder, Lion's Eye Diamond. We're on the play and play island - go, waiting an extra turn to see what our opponent is on to make our ponder better. He plays Ancient Tomb, Chalice of the Void on 1. Well, fuck. 4 turns later I won. How? (Top decks are irrelevant for this puzzle)

.

..

...

....

.....

......

.......

.......

On my turn 2, I played a fetch --> Badlands, and then I cast Burning Wish --> Shattering Spree. On his turn 2 he played another Ancient Tomb and then a Sword of War and Peace. On my turn 3, I played fetch land --> Volcanic Island, then I cast Shattering Spree and replicated it once.

Wait... That shouldn't work, right? Shattering Spree costs 1 so it shouldn't matter! Well first, read the oracle text on Chalice of the Void: "Whenever a player CASTS a spell with.....". When a copy is put on the stack, it is not cast so the Chalice of the Void will not be able to trigger. So the first Shattering Spree will be countered by the Chalice of the void, but the copy (which is technically on the stack on top of the original) will not trigger the Chalice because it is placed on the stack and not cast, and therefor it will destroy the Chalice.

From this point, I still had an untapped island, so I cast Ponder and won shortly thereafter.

Puzzle 4

Same match, but this is game 3. My opponent is playing the mono-blue aggro deck that I think is a steaming pile of crap. We sideboarded +4 Dark Confidant, -1 Ad Nauseum, -1 Cabal Therapy, -1 Duress, -1 Chrome Mox. We're getting beat down, and things aren't really working for us. I'm a little frustrated because I think he's playing a bad deck, and I would feel like a chump to lose. Here's some stats:

We're at 4 life, he has 7 power on board.

Opponent has 2 cards in hand, one of them is a land.

Opponent is at 18 life.

We have Dark Confidant, 2x Underground Sea, Island, Badlands, Fetch all untapped

Our graveyard: Cabal Therapy, 3 Fetch lands, Ponder, Brainstorm, Gitaxian Probe, Dark Confidant, Infernal Tutor

Our hand is: Dark Confidant, Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Lion's Eye Diamond, Infernal Tutor

We attack for 2 with Bob, he goes to 16

1 - Flashback Cabal Therapy naming Brainstorm. His unknown card is Flusterstorm

How do we win?

.

..

...

....

.....

......

.......

........

2 - Cast Dark Ritual (tapping Underground Sea)

BBB

3 - Cast Cabal Ritual

BBBBBB

4 - Lion's Eye Diamond

5 - Infernal Tutor, sacrifice LED in response for red --> Past in Flames

BBBBRRR

6 - Cast Past in Flames

BBR

Quick aside

{

If he cast Flusterstorm here, the only way I could get my spell to resolve would be to pay 7 mana because of the high storm count. I have 4 lands untapped along with my 3 mana floating, so I could pay it, but then I would have 0 mana to work with and I would only have Gitaxian Probe as an out if it drew me exactly a black mana source (Lotus Petal / land).

However, I also have the option of letting the Past in Flames get countered, then only investing 5 mana to flash it back, so I would still have access to two lands, and I could fearlessly just ritual + tutor for the kill. Therefor, not casting Flusterstorm here is correct, because there is also no Duress effect in the graveyard to lose the Flusterstorm to.

}

7 - Flashback Brainstorm (tapping island) --> 2x Fetch Land + Infernal Tutor, put back 2 lands

8 - Cast Infernal Tutor from hand --> Duress

R

9 - Duress (tapping Underground Sea), taking Flusterstorm

10/11 - Crack fetch --> Swamp. Flashback Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual

BBBBBBR

12 - Infernal Tutor --> Tendrils of Agony

BBBBR

13 - Tendrils for 26

R

In hindsight, I didn't need to cast Brainstorm because I had 2 Infernal Tutors in my graveyard so I could have  just flashbacked a Tutor for a Duress and saved 1 mana. I did get lucky off the Brainstorm, but it's still important to acknowledge superior lines of play.

I don't have any more sweet puzzles to put up today, although I did have some other cool games. There was one against BW Deadguy Ale where I had no permanents in play, taking 3 a turn, and he had a Liliana ticking up. I had everything I needed to combo... in the graveyard. However I topdecked a Past in Flames, so things looked possible. I then drew 2 LEDs, and got to discard the Past in Flames to the Liliana, so I flashbacked the Past in Flames with B in the pool, then cast a ton of rituals and tutors and won out of absolutely no where with no permanents in play - magic at its finest!

Ad Nauseum is a sweet deck because even though it has one clear way to win the game, there are infinite routs to get there, and sometimes all your need is a little extra thinking to make all the pieces come together. In these puzzles you got to fight through counterbalance, soft counterspells, and Chalice of the Void. Sure, these all are tough to deal with, but this deck is so robust that it is possible to fight through anything!

That's all I have for today! Until next time, stay classy!

Ryan Lackie
Ryan.Lackie92@gmail.com
@ThingsILack